DEMOGRAPHICS: Based on 2012 census. School Leavers is percentage of high school graduates divided by persons over 18. LOTE is number identified as speaking language other than English at home, divided by total population.

The electorate of Mildura covers the north-western corner of the state, extending along the Murray River as far as Piangil (about 30 kilometres short of Swan Hill), and south to encompass Ouyen and Hopetoun. The abolition of its eastern neighbour Swan Hill in the redistribution has caused it to absorb a large but thinly populated area including Birchip and Sea Lake, accounting for 3400 voters. In the modern era it has been a conventionally safe conservative rural seat, although in past times the rural workforce made Labor at least competitive, sufficiently so to win the seat in 1945 and 1952.

The seat was held by the National/Country Party then held the seat from 1955 until 1988, when Craig Bildstein won it the Liberals upon the retirement of Milton Whiting. Bildstein went on to be unseated in 1996 by independent candidate Russell Savage, a former Mildura shire president, who easily outpolled Labor on the primary vote and secured a 1.4% winning margin after preferences. After three years of condescending treatment at the hands of Jeff Kennett, and with Steve Bracks promising to adhere to a charter of demands that mostly involved overturning contentious Kennett government policies, Savage and two other independents decisively threw their weight behind Labor after the 1999 election produced a hung parliament. Despite the possibly contentious nature of this decision, his primary vote rose from 44.4% at the 1999 election to 52.1% in 2002, before slumping to 34.0% upon his defeat in 1996.

After an 18-year absence, the Nationals finally recovered the seat in 2006 when Savage suffered defeat at the hands of the current member, Peter Crisp, a horticulturalist and councillor for Wentworth Shire on the other side of the New South Wales border, where he owns a property. Crisp increased his vote at the 2010 election by 6.4% to 46.7%, despite again facing strong competition from independents in Glenn Milne, the mayor of Mildura, and Doug Tonge, advocate of a proposed local casino project who had strong business backing. Milne polled 16.0% and Tonge 14.4%, Crisp prevailing over the former after preferences by a margin of 9.2%.

Early this year, Crisp was charged with firearms offences after the theft of three guns from his farm, and was put on a good behaviour bond for failing to prevent their loss or theft, while being cleared of more serious charges. This did not stop him winning promotion to parliamentary secretary for regional development in the March reshuffle.